
Qass. 
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THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN: 
WHAT IT REPRESENTS. 



A. S E R M O ISr , 



PREACHED BEFORE THE 






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PITTSBURGH, PENN'A. 



THURSDAY, JUNE 1st, ISO a, 



By Rev. W. H. BENVDli 



W. (.t. Johuston \- Co., Vriiitcrs aud Stationorts. 57 Wootl :iii(l Id.) Third Stroets, PiUsburj,'li. 

1865. 



M 



THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN; 
WHAT IT REPRESENTS. 



j^ s E R M o isr , 



PUEACIIED BKFOIIE THE 



mi Mtw M$m^ 



c^y 



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PITTSBURGH, PENN'A, 

TIIUIISUAY, JUNE 1st, 1SG5, 



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W. O. Johnston & Co., I'lintuis aud StaUoiicite! ^7 Wood .and lo:. Third Sti-eets, ritlsburgli. 

1865. 



E 



45^ 



s E n M o isr 



In accordance with the recommenclatioii of the Chief 
Magistrate of the country, the men of all religions in 
the loyal portion of the land, observe tliis day as a day 
of fasting and humiliation, and have met together in their sev- 
eral houses of worship, to offer prayers unto the Lord, 
being specially led thereunto by consideration of the clos- 
ing act in the fearful drama, whose tragic scenes have 
convulsed the nation's life during the last four years of 
its existence. 

Moved by hell, the men of the South had conspired to- 
gether from evil and selfish endg^ and had risen up in 
wicked rebellion against the parental government, from 
v;hich was born their national life, which had nursed 
their infancy, which had reared them through their child- 
hood, and which had . filled unto their manhood a fnll 
measure of prosperity and honor. Moved by hell, with 
hatred and malice in their heart, with murder and wea- 
pons in tlieir hands, these men of the South had sought 
to compass the death of their country, whicli, under Hea- 
ven and the Church, was the nearest neighbor to the a ; 
which ought to have been dearest to their natural affec- 
tions, and the most cherished object of their hopes, aspi- 
rations and strivings. 

And, when in the slowly germinating, growing and ri- 
pening conviction of the imminent and threatening danger 
of the nation's existence, the men of the North and the 



handful of true and loyal men still remaining in the South, 
had come to the rescue of their Government, and had put 
forth ever more of the might which the Lord gives to the 
right ; those men of the South, opening their hearts full 
wide to every infernal form of hatred and rage, whetting 
their malice upon the stones of every satauic falsehood, 
and baring their arms to every fearful deed of blood, cru- 
elty and revenge, gave themselves, soul and body, to the 
work of death and destruction. 

During four long and terrible years there had raged a 
war, unparallelled in the magnitude of its proportions ; 
unequalled in the ferocity of the one, and in the calm and 
firm determination of the other party ; unmatched in the 
manifestations of the cruelty of hate, and of the for- 
bearance and long suffering of devotion to principles of 
Truth and Right ; and, as unsurpassed in the grandeur of 
its results, as in the enormity of the crime which gave it 
birth, and in tlie vastness of the power put forth in the 
interests of humanity to crush the worst of despotisms, a 
despotism which decreed the destruction of the souls of 
men, that it might enslave their bodies. 

And, at length, when the dead on the battle-field, and 
in the camp ; on the march, and in the hospital ; on riv- 
er and ocean ; from secret blow and bullet ; from cruel 
privation, and deliberate starvation, had been numbered by 
hundreds of thousands ; v.hen desolation, utter and wide- 
spread, had covered the fairest portions of the land ; when 
malignant and open treason in the South, combined with 
hidden and viler treachery in the North, had failed of its 
purpose, by fire and sword^ by poison and pestilence ; when 
the burning and raging lust of the rebellion's heart had 
utterly exhausted the powers of its body, in desperate ha- 
tred it called together all tlie forces of malice, revenge, 
cruelty and cunning, and entering with them into the dark 



and secret council-charabers of hell, there bound them all 
into one fell purpose to strike its last blow at the right. 
To strike the last and fatal blow bj the hand of the 
leading traitor ? No ! By the hand of the rebel sol- 
dier ? No ! By the hand of an open and avowed foe ? 
No ! — By the hand of one, whose miserable life had been 
sheltered by the Government he sought to destroy ; by 
the hand of one who, having failed to mimic well the 
tragic words and deeils of other men, sought an infamous 
immortality, and a filthy reward in a deed of actual tra- 
gedy, in tlie name of a cause, to which he was no more 
bound, by any selfish or worldly interests, than was the 
bullet which he sped into the brain of the best friend 
of those who upheld that cause. And, thus, did the re- 
bellion prove itself, by its own last act, to have been all 
a Murder, clothed in the dark and filthy rags of a Lie, 
the very child and image of him who was "a murderer and 
a liar from the beginning." 

Because of the act of assassination, have the loyal men 
of the nation met together on this day, in their several 
houses of worship, at the invitation of the President of 
the United States, to observe a day of Fasting, Humilia- 
tion and Prayer. And it is right. It is right that they 
should go up to the Lord, and fasting before Him, should 
offer unto Him their prayers and supplications, — so that 
they may come into states of mind and heart to be led 
by Him into the way in which they shall walk, accord- 
ing to His divine Will and Law. It is right, too, that 
men should fast and pray according to the light which 
they have received in respect to the things of true spirit- 
ual life, in order that these things may flow in, and form 
into correspondence and agreement with themselves Avhat- 
ever is of civil and moral life with them. 

In the faith wliich we profess, men and brethren, and 



6 



according to which we worship the Lord, the act of fast- 
ing is not an act of the hody, hut of the spirit. T!io 
outward abstinence from accustomed food signifies to us 
a corresponding state of the mind and life , a state of 
grief, mourning and humiliation on account of a deficien- 
cy of the Truth and the Goodness, which are the spirit's 
food. And prayer, in our faith, is a turning of the whole 
interior man, of all his afFections and thoughts to the 
Lord, opening them to His divine influences, from an in- 
most desire to receive them, to the end that they may 
lead into truer conditions of thought, into better states ot 
affection;, and into purer and holier ways of speaking and 
acting ; that they may bring about a spiritual .consociation 
of man with the angels, and a conjunction of his life 
with the divine life. 

In the light of this faith, it belongs to our fasting that 
we seek to derive from the Lord's teachings to His Cliurch, 
in His Word and Doctrine, a clearer and fuller under- 
standing of the occasion of this our mourning and humilia- 
tion ; of the great truths involved in its permision, and of 
the meaning which it has to to us and to all men ; an 
understanding which shall lead to a real and living ac- 
knowledgment of the Lord's divine government in the 
World, and over the World ; to a real and living ac- 
knowledgment of Him as the all in all of life, the Crea- 
tor, Preserver, Eedeemer and Savior^ whose only end in all 
the operations of His providence with His hun^an creatures, 
is the salvation of their souls, and their being made bles- 
sed and happy from Himself to eternity. 

If we can thus gather, from the fearful event, which is 
the occasion of our fasting and prayer, the lessons of in- 
struction concerning what is true and good, which it con- 
tains, if it is made the means of enabling us to see what 
great evils we ought to shun as sins against God, and 



what the good is which we ought to do, and how we 
ought to do it, — then shall oui' mourning hecome to 
us a tiling of real and actual life, not a mere emotion of 
grief and sorrow, hut an intelligent appreciation of the 
cause of our grief and sorrow, leading to an actual 
reception of that truth which shall guitle us in light, and 
to an actual doing of that truth, by which the light shall 
become unto us the way of life, 

And, in order that we may so regard this occasion, and 
suffer it, first of all, to place our minds in a true posi- 
tion towards itself and towards Him, who alone is Light 
and Life, let us plant ourselves firmly on that great truth, 
which, by universal acknowledgment, and by actual and 
tangible manifestation and revelation, has been given to the 
nation and to the world in the life and in the death of 
Abraham Lincoln, the late and lamented President of the 
United States; the great Truth, " Tliat there is a divine 
Providence of the Lord, by which He rules and governs, 
by provision and permission, in all the affairs of men — in 
the least as in the greatest, and, by which, he brings 
them to work together for eternal good to the souls of 
men whom he has created to live forever with him in 
the heavens," 

I will not stop, at this time, to offer either argument, 
or demonstration or illustration in support of this propo- 
sition. For him who has lived through, and looked upon 
the events of the last four years of our country's liistory, 
there can be no possible need of them. For him who 
denies the very evidence of his senses, to which it has 
been brought so manifestly home, they would bo worse 
than useless. He would deny the flict of a blow that 
felled him to the earth, and the reality of the hand that 
raised him to his feet again. What we do need to ob- 
serve, however, in respect to this great truth of a divine 



8 

Providence^ in and over all the affairs of men, is that we 
must carefully distinguish two things therein: two things, 
determined, on the one hand, by the nature of Him who 
provides, and, on the other hand, by the nature of those 
who are provided for. The Lord, who provides, is good. 
He is all good, and only good ; and He is also wise, all 
wise, and only wise. Whatever, therefore, in the operations 
of Providence, is from Him, — that is only good and wise ; 
that is the best and wisest, being for the promotion of 
eternal good by means which are truest, and most per- 
fectly adapted to the attainment of that end. Man, who 
is provided for, is, by nature, altogether in evils and fal- 
sities ; but, at the same time, so constituted by creation, 
and so preserved by the Lord, that he is in freedom to 
act according to his own reason and understanding, in 
freedom to be good or evil, to be wise or foolish. 

This essential constitution of the divine nature of the 
Lord, and of the human nature of man, necessitates two 
conditions of the Providence ruling and governing in the 
affairs of men. In the one there is provision for good, 
according to the highest wisdom, and, in the other, there 
is permission of evil, according to the state of the human 
understanding, determined by the will of man and its 
loves. Human freedom absolutely requires the power of 
determining human life, either towards good or evil ; the 
power of choosing between truth and falsify. But, since 
man is finite^ and eternal, only in the sense of immortal, 
that is, only in respect to the continuance of his spiritual 
existence, the Providence of permission must be regarded 
as subordinated to that of i^rovlsion, seeing that the lat- 
ter is of infinite good, and looks to what is eternal and 
infinite, whilst the former relates to what is only temporal 
and finite, or at most, to what is immortal. In permit- 
ting evil and falsehood, the Lord has respect to the eter- 



nal good of all men, as well as to the liigliest good and 
the least evil of the individual man. Thus, there enters 
into the Lord's Providence of Grood from His own divine 
nature this essential eletueut, that, whilst He governs 
and rules men both by provision and permission, He 
overrides all things of permission, which] are evil and false, 
for the final and eternal well-baing and happiness of the 
universal human race. By His wisdom He so orders and 
arranges all the concerns of men, both spiritual and 
natural, that even the evil and false things which 
He permits, by acting as restraints upon other evil and 
false things, and, by correctiug their results^ serve gradually 
to restrict and diminish their power and influence, to re- 
move them from their internal and ruling place in the 
hearts and lives of men, towards the circumference, and, 
thus, to raike wa,r for the entrance and in-dwelling of 
the principles of truth and goodness, by which man is re- 
formed and regenerated into the divine image and after 
the divine likeness ; by wliich he is enabled to come into 
the order of heaven, and to live the life of heaven even 
on the earth. 

If we will accept this teaching of the Cliurch, concern- 
ing a ruling and overruling providence ; a providence which 
provides whatever is good and true, and only permits what- 
ever is evil and false for the sake of iiuman freedom 
according to reason, and for the sake of the development 
of a humanity in the image and after the likeness of the 
Divine Humanity, by means of a rational acknowledgment 
and doing of the divine Will and Law, it will not be 
difficult for us to obtain a s )mewhat clear view and un- 
derstanding of the occasion, which has brought us together 
to-day, and ot its significance to us and to all men. 

The occasion is the assassination of Abraham Lincoln", 
late President of the United States. 



In considering this sad and terrible event, I propose to 
notice, particularly, three things, the lessons which they 
teach, and the results which they oaght to bring forth. 

These three things are : 1st, The men ; — 2d, The time 
and place : — 3d, The act itself. 

And of these three things, I observe that, whilst each 
of them presents itself in a dual form, representing what 
is good and evil, all of them, as outward things, belong- 
ing to this world, represent in themselves, and in their 
manifestations, three internal and spiritual conditions of 
good and evil, of truth and falsity. 

I. The men ; — the victim and the murderer : the Chief 
Magistrate of the land and the actor ; the loyal Presi- 
dent, and the traitor assassin. 

No man stands alone in the world. Every one is a 
man because he belongs to the human family. Every one 
has a neighbor and is himself a neighbor, having a cer- 
tain relation to the men of his nation, tribe, family and 
kindred. Every man has his own place in his own na- 
tion, and among his own people. Every man belongs to 
a certain class and order of men, as to his affections and 
thoughts ; to a certain rank or degree of society, as to his 
position, occupation, habits and actions. When any man 
acts, his act represents, outwardly and visibly, not only what 
there is in him to produce it, but also what there is in 
others, who are of the same kind, of the same class, or 
of the same degree of life. 

Again, every man, by his affections and thoughts, is, in- 
ternally and spiritually, associated with men in the spirit- 
ual world, who are in similar affections and thoughts, and 
when he acts, his act both manifests and represents the 
quality and kind of affection and thought in which he 
and his associates are ; it is an outward expression of what 
is, and moves in their hearts and lives. 



11 

And, again, every man's use, which is his office, business 
or occupation, has an existence in the natural world, by vir- 
tue of its correspondence to some spiritual form of use, busi- 
ness or occupation, which it necessarily represents, and ot 
which it is the express image and ultimate agent. 

No man, therefore, stands alone, either in his bodily or in 
his spiritual life and existence. And no man acts alone, 
but Irom and with all those who are of his own kind and 
class, in the spiritual and in the natural world, who are as- 
sociated with him by community of affection and thought, 
either in heaven, or in hell. On the ground of this i)rin- 
ciple, I remark that, whilst Abraham Lincoln, as a man, 
belonged to a certain class of men in the natural and in 
the spiritual world, and as a politician, to a certain class of 
political men, holding certain political ideas and views, which 
flowed from higher spiritual ideas of law and order ; and 
that, whilst his assassin, belonged no less to another class 
and order of men, nationally, politically and socially, as well 
as spiritually, morally and civilly ; both the former and the 
latter were representative men in another sense, by virtue of 
the office filled by the one, and of the occupation followed by 
the other. 

And, here, do these two men stand apart, at a distance 
almost immeasurable. Wide as was the separation between 
them, after leaving the common ground of humanity and na- 
tionality, in all that constitutes character and quality and 
class, as representative men, they are antipodal. 

Abraham Lincoln held the office of l^resident of tlie Uni- 
ted States. In this office he represented to the people of 
the country the Lord himself, as to Divine Truth, ruling 
and governing by Law. 

John Wilkes Booth was, by occupation, an actor, and as 
such, not a true but a false representative of other men, or 
rather, of their supposed feelings, emotions, ideas and 



12 

tlioughtSj as these were conceived in thought, and embodied 
in language by still other men. 

Note the distinction particularly. It is of importance to 
the view of the subject, which I desire to present to you. 

But the office of President of the United States, and un- 
der the constitution of our government, is altogether ec[uiv- 
alent to the office of King or Monarch, in those countries 
in which the kingly form of government prevails. And, con- 
cerning the nature of this office, we are thus instructed in 
Arcana Ccelestia, No. 3670 : 

"That it is a thing of indifference what be the qual- 
ity of the man who represents, whether he be evil or good, 
and that evil men may alike represent, and did represent, 
the Lord's divine principles, may appear from the repre- 
sentatives which exist even at this day ; for all Kings, lohaf- 
soever they are, and of lohatsoever quality, by virtue of the 
principle of royalty appertaining to them, represent the Lord ; 
— the principle of royalty is holy, luhatever be the nature 
and quality of the person luho ministers therein." 

According to this teaching of the Church, drawn from 
the Word, and confirmed by its literal sense throughout, 
did Abraham Lincoln, as President and Ruler of this coun- 
try, represent the Lord in that office, which is holy, by vir- 
tue of the principle ot royalty appertaining to it : by virtue 
of the Divine Truth, by which the Lord rules and governs 
all things in the Universe, and of which the regal office 
is the external civil agency and instrumental means. 
In this office he did not represent the people, according 
to the commonly received, but radically flilse, idea existing 
among us ; but he represented the Lord to the people. He 
represented that to the nation, in the civil plane of its 
existence, which the Lord himself is to all men, in the 
spiritual and natural planes of life. And, it is in the 
light of this truth, that I desire to consider the nature 



13 

of the act wliicli deprived him of his earthly existence ; 
and that I pronounce it an act of rebellion against the 
Lord^ and not against man; an attempt to destroy the di- 
vine life, and not a human life. 

The quality of the man, whatever we may conceive it 
to have been, did not afleot the representative nature of 
his office ; it merely affected his own position, as a true 
or false representative in that office. But, even in regard 
to this, his position^ I know of no man who can better 
stand the test of truth or f^ilsity to his offi.ce, than this 
man of the people. And the test is this, as laid down in 
our doctrines : 

" In proportion as a King claims to himself any por- 
tion of the holy principle appertaining to his royalty, or 
attributes it to himself, he is a spiritual thief ; and also, 
in proportion as he does evil, that is, acts contrary to what 
is just and equitable, and contrary to what is good and 
true^ in the same proportion he puts off the representation 
of holy royalty, and represents the opposite." (A. C. 367G.) 
"ile never loses the representation of royalty, but merely ren- 
ders it holy or unholy, according to his own state in it, 
and according to the principles which determine liis ad" 
ministration of its functions." 

Who charges this man with the spiritual theft of claim- 
ing, or attributing to himself any portion of the holiness 
appertaining to his office ? If any, I will not be guilty of 
the folly of attempting a defence in tlie face of that testi- 
mony which covers every page of the history of these last 
four years. Why, our charge against him, in the dark 
hours of trial and danger, has been that he would not be 
a spiritual thief; that he would not undertake to rule 
events and make history ; that he would suffer himself to 
be guided by events, and directed only according to the 
exigencies of the hour. He did not even venture to pre- 



14 

diet, he had only ''high hopes for the future," because he 
believed in a Divine Providence, and acknowledged a Di- 
vine Ruler of men. In that last, great word, which he 
spoke to the nation, upon assuming anew the office, to 
which the people, in most righteous recognition of his 
faithful and worthy services, had called him a second time; 
in that paper, which I do not hesitate to pronounce the 
most remarkable State paper on record, he thus solemnly 
discourses : 

"The Almighty has his own purposes: 'Woe unto the 
World because of offences, for it must needs be that offen- 
ces come ; but woe unto that man by whom the offence 
cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is 
one of these offences which, in the Providence of God, must 
needs come, but which having continued through His ap- 
pointed tinle, He now wills to remove, and that He gives 
both North and South this terrible war as the woe due 
to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern that 
there is any departure from those Divine attributes which 
the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him ? — 
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this 
mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away ; yet, if 
God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the 
bondsmen in two hundred and fifty years of unrequited 
toil, shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn 
with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the 
sword — as was said three thousand years ago^ so still it 
must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true 
and righteous altogether?" 

Is this the language of a spiritual thief? 

Does any accuse him of having acted contrary to what 
is just and equitable, contrary to what is good and true? 

I reply — Many things of his administration may have so 
appeared, even in the eyes of loyal men^ seeing that in 



15 

his judgment lie was fallible and shortsighted, as all men 
are ; that under the trying and difficult circumstances of 
his position, with varying and opposing counsels, with new 
and unheard of conditions, with perplexities arising from 
want ot constitutional provision, as well as from defect of 
governmental organization and experience, it could not 
have been otherwise than that errors should be committed, 
and measures adopted, which failed in their expected results, 
and which actual results proved ill-judged. But apart 
from these^ how much is there for which, in our haste 
and impatience, we have blamed, and even denounced him, 
and in regard to which events have most fully justified 
his wisdom and prudence, and condemned our folly and 
short-sightedness ; teaching us the lesson that the position 
which a man occupies, not only determines his decisions, 
but also enables him to decide more truly and justly than 
is possible for those who are not similarly situated. 

As President, Abraham Lincoln stood above the people 
who observed him. His knowledge of conditions and cir- 
cumstances was more exact and minute, his range of vis- 
ion was wider and more extended than theirs, and, as 
representative of the Lord, his office brought him, spiritu- 
ally and mentally, into a higher and wiser spiritual asso- 
ciation, under liiglier and wiser influences, and gave to 
him greater ability and power to discern wiiat Avas for 
the good of the whole. It was his duty to judge for the 
whole, and to act for all. 

And again, whatever errors of judgment he may have 
committed, surely we dare not impute to him evils of in- 
tention , we cannot charge him with any purpose to act 
contrary to what is good and true, in the presence of 
that life, wliich he sacrificed to the cause of his country, 
and whilst the tone of true and pure benevolence which 
pervades his last solemn words, still vibrates in our ears, 



16 

and our hearts still burn within us from the kindling at 
that warm flame of love to his fellow-man, which flashes 
forth the firm and noble sentiments in the close of his 
last inaugural address ; sentiments bequeathed to us and 
to all future ages as the grand legacy of a life devoted 
to the good of the human family. " With malice toward 
none, with charity for all^ with firmness in the right, as 
God gives us to see the riglit, let us strive on to finish 
the work we are in ; to bind up the nation's wounds, to 
care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his 
widow and his orphans, to do all which we may to achieve 
and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and 
with all nations." 

If this nation will take to heart and life the spirit 
and the truth of these words, Abraham Lincoln will need 
no other monument to commemorate his life, and to con- 
secrate his memory in all coming time. 

This of him as a Kuler. As a man, Abraham Lincoln 
was of an humble origin, as the world accounts these 
things. Born in obscurity and poverty, early left to himself 
and his own scanty resources, he began his active life with 
out any advantages of position or education. He had to 
labor for his daily bread, amidst privations and hardships, 
and to gain knowledge as he might, by observation, by ex- 
perience, and by such scraps of learning as he could gather 
here and there, in the intervals of his work. But upon 
this I will not dwell. The great fact amidst all these 
circumstances, in which he was providentially placed, the 
fact, chiefly of moment, and most noticeable to us at this 
time, is, that he labored ; that he lived by labor ; that he 
raised himself by his own labor out of his humble be- 
ginnings to ever higher and higher social positions ; that 
he disciplined himself, by labor, for the performance of 
ever higher uses and duties, until he came, finally, even 



to the highest phice in the hind, a man of work ; a man 
whose whole life was a guarantee of liis living faith in 
labor, as the true destiny of the human race ; a man, 
whose life and faith constituted him a most fitting and 
exalted representative in the civil plane, of that divine 
humanity of labor, against whicli the hells were marshal- 
ling their hosts of slaveholders in both worlds, under the 
banner of a confederation which proclaimed the divine 
right of man to " wring his bread from the sweat of 
other men's faces," and whicli laid its foundations on the 
chains that creaked and clanked from the writhing of hu- 
man lives, bound and prostrate before inliuman lusts. A 
most fitting and exalted representative, was this man, I 
repeat it, both in his life and in his office, of that di- 
vine humanity of labor , of that inmost spiritual principle 
of the life of Heaven and the Church, which it has in love 
to the Lord and in charity towards the neighbor. What 
is this love, what is this charity, but to do good, to 
serve, to be useful to the neighbor from the Lord, for the 
sake of good and use, and not for any sake of self or the 
world, even as the Lord himself does good and performs 
uses to man, not for liis own sake, but for tlie eternal 
welfare and happiness of man, whom the Divine Love 
would make happy from itself to eternity. Tliis flict I 
notice as prominent in the career and life of Abraham 
Lincoln, as characterizing the man, to whom, for this reason, 
and for his earnest devotion to tlie principle it involves, 
future ages will do even more honor, than has been ac- 
corded to liim in the present ; as they themselves, shall 
open to the life of that principle, and grow into the ful- 
ness and perfection of the real manhood, which can alone 
flow from its activity and power, seeing that it is the 
very going forth of the Lord's life in the work of re- 
generating man into the image anl after the likeness of 
the Divine. 



18 

And yet another thing, ])rominent in the disposition of 
our murdered President, do I notice; his tender and gen- 
erous heart ; his nature abounding in kindliness and 
love to his fellow men. By this he won the affections of 
the people as thoroughly as he established himself in their 
confidence, by his entire earnestness and unswerving integ- 
rity of purpose, and by the singleness of aim with which 
he held on his way to the suppression of the rebel! ionj 
and the restoration of the Union. In this he was strono; 
and also — weak ; and since it would, unquestionably, have 
been the means of hindering, if not of frustrating, the 
great object whereunto he had devoted all his powers, ta- 
lents, energies and life, so did it become the means of 
ending his existence on earth, and of transferring it to a 
sphere where true patriotism is changed into a love of the 
Lord's heavenly kingdom. Had President Lincoln not 
yielded to his super-abundant kindliness of disposition and 
entered the theatre on the night of the 14th of April, 
he would not have been the victim, and Booth would not 
have been the murderer. For, whatever his intentions, 
however wicked and devilish his purpose, the actor could 
not have slain the President in any other place but in 
that in which he was sustained, impelled and incited by 
the infernal spirits, by whom he was supplied with a mo- 
tive, and upheld in his purpose. 

And this leads me to speak of him, of the assassin. 

How unlike his victim ! Between them there was no- 
thing in common, but the ordinary traits and appear- 
ance of humanity. In their uses, in their characters of 
heart and mind, in their origins, in their activity and in 
their lives, they were opposites. The one, as tlie Ruler of 
the nation, was a true representative man ; the other, as 
an imitator and mimic of pretended and assumed charac- 
ters, was a merely external and false representative, and 



19 

a failure even in tliis. Born, doubtless, with some liered- 
itary love for the actor's art, he possessed neither the en- 
ergy nor the talents to achieve success. Dissolute in liis 
tastes and habits, he shunned a life of industry and labor, 
and sought to enrich himself by whatever easy methods 
came within liis reach. A spurious Southerner, he had 
not even the excuse of birth and hereditary disposi- 
tion, of education and family influence and association, for 
his rebellion against the government. A citizen of a bor- 
der State, which had not seceded from the Uizion, he was 
false to the very principle, the principle of State Uights and 
State allegiance, for which the South professed to contend. 
And thus did he represent most fully in himself, the cause- 
lessness of the entire rebellion, as in his passions, and their 
manifestation^ he represented the evils which moved to its 
outbreak, the evil lusts of dominion anl of money, to be 
gratified at the expense of the lives, the possessions and 
labor of other men. He was an actor, for lame and for 
money; he assumed and pretended evil passions, as well 
as true and noble emotions anl feelings, for fame and 
money ; and when he fiiled in mimic tragedy, he rushed 
headlong into real tragedy, for fame — and for money. — 
To him belongs not even the infernal credit of having 
been animated by tbe unaffected evil lust which ruled 
80 many in the rebellion. flis act was mere acting,, 
from an actor's love. 

It was all a lie, as it was only a murder. Me was 
not a man of the South by parentage, or by birth ; he 
was not a slaveholder ; he held not an inch of " sacred 
soil;" he had not even "expatriated" himself to become a 
rebel soldier. He lived under the government which he 
professed to hate, and, whilst enjoying its protection, he 
deliberately planned, and treacherously arranged all things 
for the deed of death ; but so, that secure in its successful 



20 

accomplishment, lie might also secure liis escape, and reap 
and enjoy his reward. And, in all of it, though he did 
succeed in part of his purpose, I can see nothing more than 
the lowest cunning, without intelligence, without prudence , 
without common sense. What great result could he possi- 
bly have looked for? The war was at an end, the victory had 
been won, the rebellion was crushed. The death of the 
President could not restore the armies of the South, turn 
back the tide of triumph, or begin the war anew. Not 
even the desire of revenge, can be urged as a motive for 
his deed. There was to him no cause of revenge ; most 
certainly not in connection with the man whom he slew, 
the very last of all men wliose life should have been ta- 
ken by one who sought the safety or immunity of his 
rebel friends. It was an act of sheer stupidity, of blind 
folly and madness ; an act of wanton devilishness^ at its 
heart an attempted and designed destruction of the Lord, 
in the person of his representative, to the end that the 
devil might rule and give him his well earned reward. 
And yet, in all this, does this man represent the South 
in its rebellion against a government of law and order, 
in its life of selfish pride, and sloth and uselessness ; in 
its dependence upon the labor of others ; in its hatred of 
the principle and love of use, of the principle and love 
of labor, which lay at the very core of the whole move- 
ment, which was the hell in its lusts, that moved them 
against the heaven which the Lord ever seeks to esta- 
blish on earth, by means of the government of His truth, 
and of the acknowledgment of law as supreme, and by 
the promotion of every form of useful life, arising from 
the grand republican principles of the common good, and 
of devotion to the general welfare as the highest and pu- 
rest civil charity towards the neighbor. 



21 



II. Time and Place — 

It is certainly remarkable, and cannot be regarded 
otherwise than as most significant, that the assassination 
of President Lincoln, who, in his office, represented the 
Lord to this nation, should have taken place on the day- 
set apart by the Church, or at least by a large portion 
of the Churches, for the purpose of commemorating the 
solemn event of the Crucifixion of the Assumed Human- 
ity, after betrayal into the hands of His enemies by the 
traitor Judas ; and, still further, that it should have been 
accomplished in a Theatre, — a place of public amusement. 

Had this political Judas covenanted with the Rulers of 
his people, to betray him for a reward ? We cannot doubt 
it. Most certain it is, that he strove hard to earn a 
righteous retribution, according to the eternal law of re- 
taliation, which decrees that man shall ever receive as he 
gives. He slew, and he was slain. " Whoso sheddeth 
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." A brutal 
murderer, he died the death of a brute. Of his hereafter, 
we are not allowed to judge, any more than we are al- 
lowed to judge of the eternal fate of the ancient traitor. 
This is in the hands of Him who alone knows and tries 
the ^hearts and reins of men ; who alone can judge an 
eternally righteous judgment, concerning the future states of 
men. To that judgment do we freely deliver him. 

But here is the fact in relation to the time, and what will 
we make of it ? Certainly the day was representative of 
states and conditions in the Church, and in human life ; 
and by virtue of this it must have had a connection with 
the influences operative upon the minds of men, and with 
the principles which governed and determined their ac- 
tions. As in ancient days, when, during the Feast of the 
Passover, the Lord, in His Humanity, accomplished the 
divine work of Redemption, and Hell rose up in its final 



22 

effort, and put forth all its infernal might to prevent that 
accomplishment, so may it not have been, during this 
feast of Easter, which holds in the Christian Church the 
place of the Feast of the Jewish Passover, that the devilish 
agencies, so long at work to destroy the very principle, 
involved in our great struggle, the principle of the com- 
mon good, as the soul and centre of all civil charity ; the 
principle of use and a life of use, which the Lord had re- 
vealed and fulfilled in His Humanity on earth, and which 
He had given to the Church as tha essence of its life 
and existence, exerted in one last, mighty endeavor all 
their power to effect its destruction by a murder ? And 
may it not have been that the rage of hell was in- 
flamed to an utterly blinding and stupefying madness, be- 
cause of the more powerful influx of goodness and truth, 
in consequence of a turning of men's minds, at least in 
thought, to Him from whom they are, by the season and 
its worship, in which was commemorated his work of ren- 
dering divine Truth perpetually present, and divine Good 
perpetually acceptable to all those who will come unto 
Him? 

Be this as it may, sure it is, that Satan found as ready 
and open a place in the heart of this modern, as in the 
heart of that ancient Judas, and aimed his blow as cer- 
tainly at the life of the Lord's Representative head of 
this nation, as at the life of His Humanity itself, in 
which He had come into the world to serve and to save 
the human race. And sure it is, that, in neither case, did 
hell seek to destroy a mere outward and corporeal life, but 
that which it contained, that which it was and meant, the 
divine work of redemption in the one, — and the Avork of 
restoring to law, to the Truth in the civil plane, its right 
to supremacy, and to man the just and inalienable right 
to act in freedom according to reason, and to eat himself 



23 

the bread which he earned in the sweat of his face. — 
And sure it is, liually, that in neither case, was or could 
the design of hell be accomplished. God's word of Truth 
is eternal and cannot bo destroyed. Against his will in 
that Word, the gates of Hell can never prevail. They 
nailed His Human body to tlie Cross, but the human 
race is redeemed. They took the natural life of President 
Lincoln, but the rebellion is crushed, and the Union res- 
tored. And so will it ever be, world without end, thanks, 
eternal thanks to His merciful ruling and overruling Pro- 
vidence. 

But again, why, on this day, was the President found 
in a Theatre? There are times and seasons for all things. 
Had he thought of, or reflected on the fact that so many 
christians in the land held this to be a sacred season, to 
be devoted to special services of divine worship, even 
though he himself may have received other religious in- 
struction ; had his mind been led to dwell upon the great 
events, which were then commemorated, I feel convinced 
that even his strong desire not to disappoint the people, 
would have given way to other and higher considera- 
tions, and that his life would have been spared. But this 
was not to be. His superabundant natural kindness and 
good will had performed their great use. As oil upon 
the troubled waters, they had served to mitigate the hor- 
rors of the cruel and bitter strife, to restrain its fury, to 
soften its iron hardness, and to preserve the feelings of the 
men of tlie North from sinking into mere revenge. But 
now, when all this was overpast, when the Truth was needed, 
when the law had to be restored to its supreme 
right, when justice had to bo vindicated and wrong-doing 
punished for the good and lasting peace of the nation, 
ttiat same disposition could only have tended to hinder the 
course of justice, to fetter the hands of the government, and 



24 

to prevent, what he himself so ardently desired and prayed 
for, the achievement of a just and lasting peace among our- 
selves, and with all nations. And thus, it came through his 
own weakness, that this good and worthy man, this great 
man, was led to the place of slaughter ; — humbly and 
meekly led, even as a loving father suffers himself to be 
drawn by the hands of his children to witness their play, 
and, by his presence to give them joy. 

As I have said, it was only in a theatre, that the actor 
could have accomplished his deed of death. 

Iir. The Act, 

And what now do we say of the act? It was all and 
only a murder, clothed in the dark and filthy rags of a 
lie. As such, it is the last and lowest point of the abyss 
of the rebellion, into which it had poured every particle 
of its accumulated venom of rage, hatred, malice and re- 
venge, and by which it struck not at the man, but at the 
government ; not at Abraham Lincoln, but at the head 
and heart of the nation ; not at the President, but at the 
Lord^ whom lie represented. 

It matters not, what theories may be advanced in regard 
to the motives and thoughts of the chief actor in this 
tragedy. Certain, most certain it is, that if the rebellion 
had not been, if hell had not moved men to the rebel- 
lion, Booth would not have been the assassin of President 
Lincoln. It was the act of the rebellion, and not of this 
miserable wretch. He was but the hand nerved from 
Richmond, to do the work which Richmond had striven 
for four long years to accomplish, the work of destroying 
our free government, in order to establish on its ruins 
the worst of despotism. 

If it is true, as we believe, that our country is a neigh- 
bor to us in the highest natural sense, then, is it true 
also, that this rebellion was but one enormous murder. 



25 

And if it is true, as we know it to be, that whatever 
cause of freedom and right was put forth to justify seces- 
sion and war, was but a pretence assumed to cover the most 
selfish and wicked ends of dominion and avarice, then is 
it true also, that this rebellion clothed itself in a lie, 
whose rents and tatters only revealed more truly the hid- 
eous deformity and foulness of the body within. 

And in this, its true character, did Booth, the voluntary 
representative, not fail the master who had sent him on 
his devilish mission. As the leaders of the South had de- 
liberately planned, and treacherously, perfected their scheme 
of treason at the very seat of government, and whilst oc- 
cupying its high places of power and emolument, so did 
he, at the same seat of government, whilst enjoying its 
protection^ and living unmolested in the pursuit of his 
pleasures, .secretly arrange, and traitorously perfect his 
scheme of murder. As they began their war of rebellion 
by a sudden and overwhelming assault upon an unpre- 
pared fortress, guarded by a mere handful of men, so did 
he steal upon his unsuspecting victim, and do the deed of 
death. Were Beauregard and his seven thousand less cow- 
ardly assassins than this man ? Was his bullet sent on 
a more devilish errand than the first ball v/hich tliey 
fired at Sumter ? Were not these, in very deed and truth, 
but the first and last acts of tlic same foul murder':' 
And, when the men of the South, after the fall of Fort 
Sumter, raised the cry of freedom, and proclaimed a war 
of ".independence of northern tyranny and oppression, was 
that other and less a lie than when the assassin, leaping up- 
on the familiar stage, and brandishing a knife which had not 
done the deed, with actor's mouthing hoarsely cried, ^^ Sic 
semper tyrannis /" 

Abraham Lincoln, the murdered President; a tyrant ! 
That good^ kind, tender-hearted man a tyrant ! The 



26 



man who saved more traitors' lives from a merited doom 
than a hundred of his soldiers had slain in battle, and 
who would, doubtless, have been ready to pardon them 
all, a tyrant ! Could malice have invented a greater 
falsehood ? 

And this poor wretch, when he uttered those words, be- 
fore he passed out into the darkness and the night, which 
led to death ; and the j^roud men of that arrogant old 
State which had inscribed them on its coat-of-arms, did he, 
did they ever tliink that their motto might be made a 
two-edged sword, cutting both ways ? Did they reflect 
that the ancient words, ^^ thus ever to tyrants," need but 
a little word, but a letter, to be read " thus ever hy ty- 
rants." Who is the tyrant? The slave-driver, who would 
wring his bread from the sweat of other men's faces ; 
who would swing his cruel lash over the heads, and lay 
it on the bare backs of all his brethren, in order that he 
may be "let alone" to work out his selfish will in the 
gratification of his vile lusts ; who would ruin all, that he 
alone might rule ; or — that man of the people, who would 
go forth to do his duty to his country and his God, 
faithfully and fearlessly, because it is a duty, and for the 
good, and freedom and happiness of all, ''with malice toward 
none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right," as 
God gave him to see the right ? 

Was not this last act a full and perfect representation 
of the whole rebellion in its moving causes, in its cher- 
ished means, and in its intended results ; in its agent and 
in its last victim? 

And now, in conclusion, what of tbe results ; what may 
we anticipate of them in the future ? 

First and foremost, the nation lives, and the nation liv- 
ing, acknowledges a Divine Providence ruling and overrul- 
ing all the affairs of men for a good, greater, higher and 



27 

better than the human mind can foresee, or human pru- 
dence provide for. 

And the President lives. For the principle of royalty be- 
ing holy and from the Lord, cannot be destroyed, the of- 
fice of Ruler is perpetual. And in the man who now 
clothes that office, the nation has confidence ; it acknowl- 
edges the right man in the right place. The man by 
birth, by life and experience, best fitted to accompish the 
work which needs now to be done. He has spoken, and 
his proclamation meets the approval of all sincerely true 
and loyal men, and fills their hearts with a full trust and 
hope, that the rebellion will be effectually crushed out of 
all that remains of it so as never again to raise its head 
in the land. 

Human slavery is abolished forever. The crime and the 
curse have wrought their fearful results, by permission 
of a merciful Providence; they have been burnt up in the 
fire of their own building, and out of their ashes there 
shall arise a new life, the life of the Freedmen, to add 
to the nation's prosperity and glory, and to bring the 
added weight of its influence to bear upon other lands 
and other nations, for the promotion of the good of the uni- 
versal race of man. And when these once chattels, these 
once beaten and tortured, oppressed and degraded human be- 
ing "without souls," shall have been admitted to the duties 
ot citizenship, as they most surely will be, and in all jus- 
tice should be, then will the great principle of the humanity 
of labor, of the divine humanity of labor, stand fully vin- 
dicated before the world. Then, too, will the church of 
the Lord find in this principle, as the grand basis of all 
human striving and activity, the real and true ground 
whereon to rest the spiritual and divine principle of use, 
and ul a life of use, in the doing of good, in the serv- 
ing ot his neighbor by every man, whereby the divine 



28 

life, coming down more fully and perfectly to all, shall jf 
prepare a true, lasting and heavenly peace on earth, 
and go forth in angelic good wiJl to all men. 

And, as these results, slowly and gradually devel- 
oping at first, shall go on ever more surely and rapidly 
towards their perfection, this nation, and all nations, will 
learn to know and to acknowledge the Lord himself, in 
His Divine, spiritual, moral and civil law, and coming to 
love them hetter, will obey them more gladly and faithful- 
ly, and do His will more fully in the earth, as it is done 
in the heavens. 

And then, too, men and brethren, will their Fasting, 
Humiliation and Prayer be not only on one day out of 
many, but on all days. Grieved by any want or deficiency 
of truth and good, which hinders their life of duty and 
use, they will seek and strive to know rightly ever more of 
the divine will and law ; they will humble themselves ever 
more truly and internally, before the Divine Ruler and King, 
and pray daily, pray always, pray with every affection and 
thought, lor His continual presence in His Truth, for His 
continual guidance by tlis Truth, for His continual leading 
of their lives into all goodness, virtue, and holiness. 

And then, finally, as men look back through the vista 
of the ages to this day, and read the history of this time, 
and ponder on its lessons, in the light of the Truth expe- 
rienced and realized, they will say, of Abraham Lincoln: 

"Surely this man, this foremost man of the nation in the 
darkest hour of its existence, whose last dying look beheld 
only the faintest opening dawn of the promised future, this 
man of the people, and of labor, lived not in vain, he died 
not in vain. He trusted, with humble and childish heart, 
in the mercy of the Lord, and the Lord, in mercy, hath 
granted his earnest and fervent prayer. There is peace on 
earth." 

" To His great name be honor, and glory and dominion 
for ever and ever. Amen." 



C 



1 R ?; '12 



